How to Host a Campus Progress Speaking Event
Click on the sections below for tips to planning a successful progressive event.
Planning Get a birds eye view of how the organizing process works.
Date Tips for picking the best date.
Location Make sure your event is successful by choosing the right venue.
Food Ideas for feeding your guests.
Follow Up Learn what Campus Progress requires from you after the event.
Planning
You are the principal organizer hosting this event. Please make sure you have chosen the best location, organized your methods of publicity, and developed the event format.
Date
When hosting an event on campus check your school’s calendar for holidays, breaks and university events that might conflict with your event. We suggest that you host your event during the evening to avoid conflicting with a majority of class and work schedules. The same considerations apply to non-campus events.
Location
If you have not secured a venue, do so immediately. You want to make sure that your venue is in a central location on campus and accessible to people with mobility challenges. You can never be sure exactly how many people will attend. Pick a room that holds less people than you think will show up or arrange fewer chairs in the space. You can stack the extra chairs in an easy to reach area in case you need them later. We would rather have too many people in a small room than have too few people in a big room. If you can, reserve two rooms of different sizes so you can decide which one to use once you see how much buzz the event generates.
For non-campus events, be sure you consider rush-hour traffic, public transportation, or public parking to determine a time and location for your event.
You should also contact your local newspaper and other campus publications. If you can, place an advertisement or announcement in the paper or request a reporter to cover the event and interview the speaker, members of your organization, and guests. Also, contact the local media and provide them with your press release. The subject matter may be about a controversial topic, and someone might want to cover it. Typically, local weekly magazines or newspapers will allow you to place your event on their calendar for free, or for a small fee.
Contact the office responsible for mass mailings and have emails sent to all students, faculty and staff. Utilize listservs, community bulletin boards, and your friends – never underestimate the persuasive power of a little pleading.
Also, creating bulletins and event invites on popular sites such as facebook.com and myspace.com can help with informing friends and others in your community that may not be in direct contact with your campus.
Be sure to notify relevant academic departments and programs. A professor who is willing to give extra credit or require his or her class to attend your event will definitely increase attendance.
You are the lead organization for this event; however, as noted, you’ll often decrease your burden and workload if you reach out to local groups, student organizations and academic departments about the possibility of co-sponsoring. This can increase your audience size and help you spread the word.
Food
As we all know, free food brings a crowd. Please assess your budget and determine if you have enough money to purchase pizza, drinks, or other refreshments for the guests. If not, please contact us and we can discuss providing funding for refreshments.
Speaker logistics
We will send you your speakers’ travel itinerary and contact information closer to the date. Designate someone to take him or her to and from the airport or train station. Make sure the speaker gets to their place of lodging. Orient your speaker to the venue and its surrounding area. Arrange to escort the speaker to the event or make sure he or she knows how to get there.
Event specifics
Be sure that the amplification system (microphones and speakers) are working before the event.
If the crowd is sparse, head out of the room and pull people in – physically if you must. Mention food!
We will be sending you Campus Progress literature and a sign-in sheet. Please set up a table and/or an aggressive hawker to distribute the literature and get people to sign the sheet. After the event, please return the sign-in sheets – by snail mail to the address below, by scanning them or retyping them and emailing them to the email address below, or by faxing them to the number below- so we can get in touch with more students. You can also download a copy of the sign-in sheet here.
Choose someone to prepare an introduction and introduce your speaker at the event and provide some information about his / her background. The introducer or someone else should help moderate the question and answer period. Don’t leave your speaker hanging at the end of his or her talk – get up there and get the Q & A going. Prepare a couple of questions in advance to get the ball rolling and keep momentum– often people are hesitant to ask the first question. When you reach the designated ending time of the event, call for the last question. Better to shut it down than to have the audience slowly trickle out. If there is interest, and your speaker is willing, he or she can take additional questions informally after the event ends.
Follow Up
Campusprogress.org loves to post coverage of our events. Therefore we would like for you to contact your campus photographer, or take some digital pictures yourself, and send pictures to us at cpwebmaster@campusprogress.org. As we get closer to the event we will FedEx you Campus Progress literature that we would like distributed. The package will include our one-pager, postcards and an event sign in sheet.
Some of our staff may also be attending the event; we’ll let you know if we’re coming to your campus.
If you have any questions or concerns please contact us:
speakers@campusprogress.org
Good luck and thank you for contacting Campus Progress!
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